May be it would/would've be/been a different country if

[Ashraful Haque]

I was thinking about how different the Indian subcontinent would be today if it weren't colonised.

"May be it would/would've be/been a different country if the British hadn't colonised it."

I'm confused between would and would've in this sentence. I think 'would be' is correct for this type of structure.

 

[emsr2d2]

I was thinking about how different the Indian subcontinent would be today if it weren't hadn't been colonised.

"Maybe it would be/would've be/ been a different country if the British hadn't colonised it."

I'm confused between "would be" and "would've been" in this sentence. I think 'would be' is correct for this type of structure.

In this context, you're right. You want to talk about what it might be like now, not what it might have been like in the past.

 

[UE-SPMIW]

In my opinion, the correct phrase in this sentence would be "would be." The phrase "would have been" is used to talk about something that could have happened in the past but didn't. However, in this sentence, you are discussing a hypothetical situation that has not yet happened, and thus "would be" is the correct phrase.

Basically, you're discussing a hypothetical reality that may exist now if the British hadn't colonized India in the past. Therefore, "would be" is the correct phrase to use here.

So the corrected sentence would be: "Maybe it would be a different country if the British hadn't colonized it."

 

[5jj]

Basically, you're discussing a hypothetical reality that may might exist now if the British hadn't colonized India in the past. Therefore, "would be" is the correct phrase to use here.

 

[5jj]

I am not quite sure why you found my last post so amusing, Saski Uchiha. It was a correction of a mistake you made.

 

[Barque]

a different country

If you're referring to the subcontinent, it isn't a single country. There are about six or seven in it. And a couple of them weren't colonised.

The Indian subcontinent would be a different place today if the British hadn't colonised most of it.

 

[Ashraful Haque]

The phrase "would have been" is used to talk about something that could have happened in the past but didn't.

"India would've been a multicultural country if the British hadn't decolonized it."

Have I used 'would've been' correctly in this sentence?

 

[Barque]

Have I used 'would've been' correctly in this sentence?

Yes, but the sentence doesn't make sense to me. It is a multicultural country. And I've never heard the word "decolonize" used this way before.

 

[Ashraful Haque]

Yes, but the sentence doesn't make sense to me. It is a multicultural country. And I've never heard the word "decolonize" used this way before.

Sorry I was a bit sleepy while writing that. I meant to write multiracial.
I actually came across the word 'decolonize' when I searched for antonyms of 'colonize' just to make this sentence up.

 

[Tarheel]

@Ashraful Haque I believe India is multiracial. However, the sentence structure is fine.

 

[Ashraful Haque]

@Ashraful Haque I believe India is multiracial. However, the sentence structure is fine.

Thank you as always.
I've been to India a couple of times. To be honest I didn't see any native white, black or asians like I've seen in other countries, specially in the west.

 

[Barque]

Those aren't the only races in the world. You have different races among south Asians too. And being to India a "couple of times" won't tell you much about it, unless you visited every state on those trips.

 

[Tarheel]

@Barque I guess this is off-topic, but one thing that has stuck with me is that India has 80 languages spoken by a million or more people. Wow!

@Ashraful Haque There are two words in that post that are normally capitalized (Asian and West). Also, you will see people in India from the darkest of dark to the lightest of light. (I made that up in the fly. Clever, huh? )